Wrisper v. State

• Decision Date: 12 November 1941
• Docket Number: 13920.
• Parties: WRISPER v. STATE.
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

17 S.E.2d 714

193 Ga. 157

WRISPER v. STATE.

No. 13920.

Supreme Court of Georgia

November 12, 1941

Syllabus by the Court.

The evidence, although circumstantial, being sufficient to prove the corpus delicti and the guilt of the defendant, and the verdict having the approval of the trial judge, the judgment denying the motion for new trial, based on the general grounds only, will be affirmed.

Will Wrisper was charged with the murder alleged to have been committed July 29, 1940, of Mattie Parker by assaulting her 'with a wooden bludgeon and metal bludgeon and other blunt instruments, including bricks, rocks, and brickbats and with a knife, dirk, razor, and other sharp instruments and with a gun and pistol, and with human hands.' The jury returned a verdict finding the defendant guilty and recommending him to the mercy of the court. The defendant's motion for new trial, based on the general grounds, was overruled and he excepted. The following narrative gleaned from the evidence sufficiently states the case: The parties living together separated in the summer of 1940. Mattie went to live with another woman, Gilly Ann Ellis, upstairs in a house, 1200 of block Broadway between Bay and Hazel Streets. The defendant lived about two blocks away in one room of a two-room house in Parker's alley beyond Hazel Street crossing. Both women were servants of Mrs. Watkins of 756 Mulberry Street. After the separation the defendant, on June 26, assaulted Mattie, on account of which a charge was made in the city court of Macon. The defendant entered a plea of guilty June 28, and was sentenced to a term of imprisonment, to be released on probation, provided he paid a fine of a specified amount. After being released, the defendant persistently pursued and threatened to kill Mattie until, on account of her declared fears of defendant, Mrs. Watkins commenced the custom of carrying the two servants to their home. On these occasions she would see defendant standing at the edge of the sidewalk at the Thomas drugstore on the corner of Oglethorpe and Broadway streets, near the home of the servants. The servant Mattie disappeared on Monday night, July 29. About a week before that date and again on Friday afternoon before that date, while Mrs. Watkins was carrying the servants to their home, they passed the Thomas drug-store; whereupon the defendant, who was standing at the sidewalk, called to Mattie and 'told her she need not go up the stairs; he was going to get her.' On Monday afternoon, July 29, Mrs. Watkins again saw the defendant standing at the drug-store corner as she passed by carrying the servants to their home. After leaving them Mrs. Watkins never again saw Mattie. On the Sunday immediately preceding the Monday on which Mattie disappeared, Thomas Taylor saw the defendant pursuing Mattie with a brick and with a 'switch-blade knife,' and threatening to kill her. Other recent threats by the defendant to kill Mattie, several of them accompanied by display of a knife, need not be stated specifically. About 8:30 o'clock Monday night, July 29, 1940, Mattie, being in the room of the woman Gilly Ann Ellis, left and went to a filling-station near by, to get some ice. On returning with the ice she stated to Gilly Ann: 'I have done got a trade. * * * I am going to run down here a few minutes. I have got a negro downstairs, and I have got a trade.' See left, and did not come back. That was the last seen of Mattie alive. After the disappearance of Mattie and before discovery of the body, Mrs. Watkins saw defendant and asked him 'if he had seen Mattie, and he went behind a truck and would not say anything.'

Adeline Brooks testified: 'After Mattie disappeared I seen Will * * * with a little paper-sack under his arm, * * * and I said, 'I am glad to see you turned out. * * * Did Mattie get you out?' and he said, 'No, Mattie didn't have me turned loose. * * * Have you seen her?' and I said no, and he said 'You won't see her, and she won't put nobody else in jail.' That was on Tuesday morning. I don't know what date it was.'

Ruby Floyd testified, that on Wednesday following the disappearance, seeing the defendant, she inquired, "Have you seen Mattie?' and he said 'No', and he said, 'If I could see her I would go off in the swamp and beat her half to death,' and I said, 'Why?' and he said, 'Because she had me locked up,' and he said, 'That is a dirty woman; she didn't have no business to lock me up,' and I said, 'Mrs. Watkins wanted her to go to work,' and he said, 'She ain't going to work any more, * * * and she ain't going to stay upstairs any more."

L. H. Chapman testified: 'I am the coroner of Bibb County. * * * In this case I was called, * * * on the night of August 7th, * * * to inspect the remains of a human body * * * at the foot of Elm Street * * * down in a field * * * out beyond the old fertilizer plant where the old river swamp began. When I found this body it was covered up with corrugated paper boxes. * * * It had some bricks over it. The body was lying in a ditch three or four feet deep. * * * What was left of the body was there. All the legs and the meat was there, but her body and head--there was nothing there but the meat on her backbone. The skeleton was there, and the skull. The spinal column was there. Part of the bones in her arms had been dragged out on the bank, part of her arm. * * * Some of the finger joints were missing; they had been torn away. I found part of them. The teeth were missing. I picked up some of them in the ditch; they came out of her head. I think there was just one or two front teeth along in there. I found them in the ditch. I found a gold tooth also. It was out of the jawbone. * * * Just the front teeth were out of place. Her feet, what was left of them, were still in her shoes. She still had on socks. This little belt you have there was around her waist. Those tennis shoes were still on her feet. I found that hat down in the ditch, close to her head. I think her skull was lying on it. Those socks were on her feet. I showed these same articles to Mrs. Watkins * * * I showed them to Gilly Ann Ellis. * * * I had the teeth pulled out, I got Johnnie Smith to pull the teeth out. He pulled out what teeth were still in place. I gave Mr. Smith the teeth I picked up. The teeth you have there, mounted on some sort of plastic material, I imagine those are the teeth. I gave them to him. I asked him to have them set up where they belonged in the mouth. I gave them to Mr. Johnnie Smith to have that work done. * * * I didn't go with the officers to arrest Will Wrisper. I did go to his house. It was in Parker's Alley. * * * I was present when this bottle here was found. The bottle was found in his room under the mattress. * * * He had the bottle between the springs and the mattress. There was some old rags or something. I found that dress that is cut up here in his room. * * * It looks like scraps from that dress in that bottle. * * * I didn't find a dress down there with the body. She had on, I taken it to be a pink slip or kimono or house dress. * * * Her body was found around two and one half or three blocks from the 1300 block of Broadway. Nobody lives around where she was found. * * * The body was pretty much deteriorated from here up [measuring]. You could tell whether it was a man or a woman from here down. It didn't have any face, nothing but a skeleton. I think this place where I found this body is inside the City of Macon, * * * in a territory that protects the river from overflowing. It would be about twelve miles to the county line at that place. * * * As to the tissues of the body from her hips down, all was there. The bugs had not started on it, except to her feet. They had just started in her feet. Her left side, more of it was gone than the right. Her chest, in fact her left side, was eaten down closer than the right, eaten down closer to the backbone than her right side was. That was very noticeable. The upper part of her body was kind of cup like, just full of bugs and worms and water. A noticeable difference had been made in the progress of deterioration in the left and right side. The hair was all gone. I thought it was a white woman when I first got there, and the next morning I got up and got a rake and found the hair in the ditch. There was no skin on her head at all. I had the bones examined at the hospital by a doctor. I couldn't find any fracture in her skull. Her front teeth were out. I don't know how they got out. * * * I figured when I looked at it [the body] had been there * * * eight or ten days. I don't know of my own knowledge whether a crime, if any, was committed wherefrom she died. I don't know that. I don't know whether she died in this county. All I know was her body was there. * * * I found a pair of step-ins. * * * They were out on the bank. This hat, I made the statement I thought it was under her head, but it (the hat) was found on the right-hand side close to her step-ins, on the bank.'

There was evidence tending to identify the hat, shoes, belt, and teeth found at the body, and cloth contained in the bottle, as those of Mattie at the time of her disappearance.

Milton M. Ferrell, Harry S. Strozier, and Thomas W. Johnson, all of Macon, for plaintiff in error.

Chas. H. Garrett, Sol. Gen., of Macon, Ellis G. Arnall, Atty. Gen., E. J. Clower, Asst. Atty. Gen., and Cleburne E. Gregory, Jr., of Decatur, for defendant in error.

GRICE Justice.

Before there can be a lawful conviction of a crime, the corpus delicti, that is, that the crime charged has been committed by some one, must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. Shedd v. State, 178 Ga. 653, 173 S.E. 847. In homicide cases it must be proved that the death was caused or accompanied by violence or other direct criminal agency of some...